At the heart of a more difficult streak in the World Cup, the skier from Lac-Etchemin was unable to turn the tide in her first start at the Beijing Olympics.
Updated at 12:10 a.m.
Despite a good start to the race (-0.06 in the first interval), Gagnon was unable to approach the podium, finishing 14and super-G at the Yanqing National Center on Friday morning. She gave up 1.14 seconds to the gold medalist, Lara Gut-Behrami, world champion and already in bronze in Beijing in the giant slalom. This is a first Olympic title for the 30-year-old Swiss.
Austrian Mirjam Puchner (+0.22) and Swiss Michelle Gisin (+0.30) won silver and bronze respectively.
PHOTO ROBERT F. BUKATY, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lara Gut-Behrami won her first Olympic gold medal.
After her two outings in slalom and giant, the American Mikaela Shiffrin finally managed to reach the finish, without however threatening the leaders (9and to +0.79).
Defending champion Ester Ledecká of the Czech Republic was unable to repeat her extraordinary feat in PyeongChang in 2018. The parallel giant slalom snowboard gold medalist finished fifth, short of a win. half a second from Gut-Behrami.
Leading the discipline in the World Cup standings, the Italian Federica Brignone was relegated to seventh place, + 0.66 s from the winner.
Costly fault
At her third Olympic Games, Gagnon was pushed a little backwards on the “Rhon Rhon” jump, which unbalanced her and caused her to deviate from her trajectory. This foul cut his momentum in the more rotating portion of the Haituo Bowl. She cost her three-quarters of a second, an impossible backlog in the sliding section at the end, where she did well.
After a top 10 in Lake Louise in December, the 25and in the super-G standings has struggled in this discipline lately. She therefore extended training in the Italian Dolomites before landing in Beijing at the start of the week.
The 32-year-old athlete will try to recover next Tuesday in the downhill. She finished fifth in Zauchensee, Austria, and ninth in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany last month.
Ninth in the slalom at the Sochi Games in 2014, Gagnon has since converted exclusively to speed events. A knee injury caused him to miss the last Olympics in 2018.
Roni Remme, the only other Canadian super-G contender, finished 24thand rank (+2.27s). The 26-year-old Ontarian lined up mainly in preparation for the February 17 alpine combined, which Gagnon had not planned to participate in the latest news.